“It takes the nerve of a robber’s horse, as a Newfoundlander might say…”
Maclean’s Nov. 9, 1998 [I did not record the author’s name]
“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”
W.C. Fields (I have encountered other variants but this one is the earliest I’ve seen)
“The most important causes, in every country alike, are to be found in general conditions rather than in particular events, though we must never underestimate the influence of individuals like Philip the Fair or Simon de Montfort.”
Bertie Wilkinson, The Creation of Mediaeval Parliaments
“We economists always worry about getting our counterfactual scenarios right; without a yardstick, we are paralyzed. There is an apocryphal story about an economist who, when asked ‘How is your wife?,’ replied: ‘Compared to what?’”
Jagdish Bhagwati, Protectionism
“How is it that a lame man does not annoy us while a lame mind does? Because a lame man recognizes that we are walking straight, while a lame mind says that it is we who are limping. But for that we should feel sorry rather than angry.”
Blaise Pascal Pensées
“Imagination decides everything: it creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the world’s supreme good.”
Blaise Pascal Pensées
“We still have to learn how to live peacefully, not only with our fellow men but also with nature and, above all, with those Higher Powers which have made nature and have made us; for, assuredly, we have not come about by accident and certainly have not made ourselves.”
E.F. Schumacher Small Is Beautiful
“A successful diet is the triumph of mind over platter.”
“Gilbert!’s Top Dozen Very Bad Puns” in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 5 #8 (July/August 2002)